So this past weekend I went on my first planned trip separate from Emilio as well. Two girls from my group at the university and I went to Granada, which is a city in southern Spain. Granada is a city with very strong Arabic influence on its culture and the people as well. We left on Thursday evening and arrived Thursday night of course in time experience the nightlife in Granada. One of the girls I went with had a friend from her home town who was studying in Granada this semester so we met up with her and she showed us around a little bit. We then woke up early Saturday morning to go to an Arabic bath/spa (this was the perfect cure for a hangover, I finally figured it out!). They had around 7 pools/hot tubs to sit in; we got free tea and a 25 minute message. How it worked is we went in the locker rooms, changed into our bathing suits then went out and relaxed in the hot tubs…after a few minutes they took us to get our message and then after the message we rinsed off in a shower and then relaxed in the pools again for the rest of the time (it was an hour and a half total). This was definitely an experience that I’ve never had before and it was really cool to see the Arabic culture of the city this way as well. The rest of the day we just wondered around the city, I took a Double Decker bus tour to all the main attractions and got some cool pictures from being on top of the bus. We could also see the Sierra Nevada really well from various parts of the city so I took a lot of pictures of that…it really made me want to go snowboarding. After the bus tour we just hung out around down town and explored, nothing really exciting just took some more pictures. I then went and got my first Spanish haircut later on…I decided since we did not really have any plans for a few hours that I would go and search for a peluceria (I think that’s how you spell it but its like a hair salon). I took me a while to find one but eventually I did, while I was waiting in line I was debating about what I wanted to do…I didn’t want to do anything too crazy but I was also thinking maybe of getting it cut more like the Spanish guys here to try and fit in to the culture a little bit more. So as I was debating I decided I would ask for the same hair cut that the barber had (which would also make it easier to explain what I wanted in Spanish). So that’s what I ended up doing…Its not really any different than normal but he cut my sideburns differently and it is best when I gel it kind of like a Mohawk.
On Saturday we woke up early again but this time to go visit Alhambra, they recommend that you buy tickets online in advance and we looked to do that but they were all sold out so we had to get up early enough to get there when it opened to get tickets. Luckily we did make it. Alhambra is like an old fortress I think with Arabic influence that is on like the top of a hill overlooking the downtown part of Granada. It was really cool because we could look down on everything but also we were surrounded by the mountains on all sides. I actually found out that it was in the running to be one of the “7 wonders of the world” (I don’t really know how that works but that’s what I heard). We spent pretty much our whole morning in la Alhambra and then afterwards relaxed in our hostel and then went out to explore the town a little bit more. We stayed down town for a while, went out to dinner and then to a few bars…I went back early because I was just exhausted from the previous two nights of no more than 5 hours of sleep, and I knew we had to wake up before 7 to catch our flight back to Madrid this morning. Needless to say I was a great trip but I am extremely tired and probably going to go to bed early tonight.
The next trip I have planned is to Paris the last weekend of February, and I think I am going to have to be a little stingier with my money because this past trip to Granada definitely ate it up quicker than I wanted. I also have midterms coming up in a week, so I’m hoping that those will go alright and I’ll be able to pull off decent grades in the classes that I am currently struggling a little bit in. Hope all is well with everyone else and I will post again sometime soon. Hasta luego.
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